If we were to draw one theme from the First Reading and Gospel today, we would probably say thirst. The Israelites are thirsty, and angry. They felt ripped off and wanted to have water to live. This is a real life and death problem. If you don’t know where your next drink is coming from, death is there waiting. Thirst makes us desperate. It is not like hunger. When you are thirsty you don’t make good decisions.
Father Paul and I, before we were priests, went with a group of young adults on a hiking trip. One of the days we hiked a long ways up a mountain and while up there we ran out of water. By the time we got back to the lake, we were pretty thirsty. We looked down into the lake and the ice went down into it. The water was clear and cold. I filled up my water bottle and as I was about to drink, I noticed these red things swimming about in my water bottle, and so I poured it out. As we looked closer, we saw them swimming all around. We were thirsty but we didn’t want to drink the red things. We thought we would just use Father Paul’s hat as a filter, thinking that should filter out the red things so we could drink. So, that is what we did. The water tasted amazing except it affected our digestive system and we barely made it back to camp before we nearly had an accident. I don’t know what those red things were but God did not make them to be drank.
In the Gospel, we see another thirst that Jesus is dealing with – his own. Not a thirst for water but for souls. The woman at the well also had a thirst and had made many bad decisions to quench her thirst, and which had turned out badly. Now, after five marriages, she is with her sixth man and has been ostracized from her community. That is why she is fetching water at midday. No one in their right mind would be doing that unless they had to. Probably the other women who drew water early weren’t too kind to her. Her thirst had led her into many bad relationships and the new one did not even bother to marry her, that’s how bad things had gotten for her. She could only find a man who sort of desired her now. Everything was made wearier, I am sure, for this poor woman. But at the well she finds a man who really desires her. Not only does he desire her, he promises to provide for her. No more stagnant well water but living water that she doesn’t have to draw. All of a sudden life does not seem to be a burden. She can safely get rid of the new loser in her life because she has found a winner.
We are then reminded of another thirst, one that is manifested on the Cross. Jesus, who is exhausted and bearing 4,000 wounds, and has an obvious lack of blood, has endured what would kill at least five men, says, “I thirst.” There is an obvious bodily thirst which he has ignored because when they offer him the wine mixed with a narcotic he refuses. A man in his state should not have been able to refuse that yet he did. Then to complete the Passover he says, “I thirst,” tastes the sour wine, and dies. Meaning that his natural thirst, though it would have been extreme, was nothing compared to the thirst in his soul for us. God desires so much to be close to us, to provide living water to our souls. The woman in the Gospel feels that passion and is saved. We could not bear it if we knew how powerful Jesus’ thirst is for us. How sad he is that we look to so many things to satisfy and distract us when he has what we are looking for. Not only does he know what we are looking for, but what we are looking for is right there in the open. We are constantly looking because we still think that it has to be found, however, like the woman at the well, Jesus has found us. Now he is trying to bless us, can we accept it?
God thirsts to bless us. Like woman at the well, He is trying to draw us in to experience Him. What is the living water that God is trying to pour into our lives? It seems to me that for each of us it will be different according to our different needs. For me it has been He was showing me, blessing me and teaching me that my life is a gift. And the more I treat it that way, the more joy comes in. If I think it is mine then my life becomes drudgery and I have to find my own water. If I look at how much I have been blessed and think, “How can I use this blessing for others?” then my life becomes a joy. That is the living water God gives to me today. If I put aside my fears, my worries about my faults and inadequacies which make me want to find my own water then I get to see God’s water. Just like, as a priest, I get to hold that very body and blood of Jesus in my hands and say words that make it happen, whereas making my own water would be a loss for me and it would be for everyone else, too. Experiencing the water of Christ can make me joyful that I get to drink it.
Once our eyes are opened to the gift there will be, for sure, sadness but God will be with us in it. A pregnant woman had a vision that her son would be a priest. So she started making him his alb. On every bad day she made a thorn and on every good day she made a rose on the alb. As the time for him to get ordained came closer, she started thinking that the alb had more thorns than roses on it so she thought she should make more roses. However, when she counted them out, they were equal.
Open our eyes to Your blessing, Your beauty, Your love, Your thirst for our souls. Your love for us surpasses all things. If we are not reflecting on the blessings in life, we are like a king who does not know he is a king, and so he is no better off than the poorest man in the realm. What is the living water that you need in your life? Ask for it today.